A natural process for babies who still need to learn to differentiate day from night, night wakings are often dreaded by new parents. Their concerns are legitimate; being new parents is an exhausting role, and it is first and foremost necessary to understand the cause of a baby's night wakings to be able to adapt and react. Ouatine & Cumulus offers tips to help you manage your child's wakings.
What causes night wakings? 💤
Waking up in the middle of the night is never a pleasant feeling. While we can simply roll over in bed to continue sleeping, young children find it much harder to fall back asleep without their parents' intervention. But what causes these awakenings?
First, it's important to know that the cause of night wakings will vary with the child's age. From birth to 6 months, babies generally wake up for physiological reasons. Then, up to 12 months, children develop, at their individual pace, more independent sleep during which parents can begin to establish bedtime routines. These small changes may initially disrupt the baby. Finally, from 12 to 18 months, children's wakings are often linked to an emotional need felt after a nightmare or night terror. Separation anxiety can also play a role at this age.
Night wakings can depend on several factors:
- A physiological need: your baby is hungry, needs a diaper change, etc. Perhaps they are entering a growth spurt or illness phase during which they will need to eat more.
- Developmental phases: teething is never a pleasant period, neither for parents nor for the child who suffers while their teeth emerge. Moreover, the pain felt is even stronger when babies are lying down, as the pressure exerted by their teeth on their jaw is felt more in this position.
- Discomfort: more acidic stools (present during teething) can cause formidable discomfort when trying to sleep through the night. Add colic or gastroesophageal reflux, and these pains disrupt sleep.
- Changes in environment and habits: whether it's brightness, noise, temperature, a simple change in sleep habits can disrupt your baby's night. This can be felt during time changes, seasonal changes, or starting daycare.
Solutions to combat night wakings 🌕
Night wakings are unpleasant for everyone, and it's natural to try to avoid them. Fortunately, every problem comes with solutions, and the most useful one is establishing a sleep routine. Babies, who have everything to discover about the world around them, appreciate routines that soothe them. It helps them calm down and realize it's time to prepare for sleep.
A sleep routine creates regularity in children's daily lives. A bath, a cuddle, a story, or a song – calm activities, without exciting stimuli – should occur at regular times to help the baby gradually develop their circadian rhythm.
💡 Did you know that white noise is an excellent way to help your baby fall asleep? While adults use it to block out disturbing external noises, for babies, it's the opposite: silence can actually stress them out. White noise reminds them of the bodily sounds that soothed them in utero.
Giving your child a large meal at the end of the day to try to make them sleep better or longer at night is not a good idea, as it can cause discomfort. The last bottle or feeding of the day should be a calm moment, shared between the child and their parent. To promote quality sleep, it is advisable to avoid overly stimulating environments (noisy or bright) and to stay away from screens that emit blue light, which affects the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates the circadian rhythm. If your child wakes up during the night to eat, keep them in dim light to avoid overstimulating them and help them fall back asleep more easily.
Cocoon nests, developers of peaceful nights ✨
Optimizing their bedtime routine is important, but also consider providing your baby with a sleep environment adapted to their needs. Placing them in a room with dim lighting, an optimal temperature between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius, and away from sound stimuli will help them feel good and have quality sleep.
Ouatine & Cumulus cocoons meet their needs by soothing and enveloping them to clearly define their sleep space. As explained above, night wakings in toddlers can be linked to discomfort or insecurity. Our cocoons optimize their sleep environment to reassure them by keeping them in a flexed position with their hands close to their face, which reminds them of the position they adopted in utero.
Night wakings are part of the normal development of all babies. With patience and good strategies, your child's sleep will evolve over time, even if this period seems endless and extremely tiring. Everything always works out in the end. One day, in a few years, you'll even be the one getting them out of bed in the morning. 😃
